The Moment Institute Middle East Fellows

The Moment Institute Middle East Fellows program offers American reporters, producers, stringers and editors covering the Middle East a concentrated way to gain in-depth knowledge about the region. The low-residency fellowship introduces fellows to journalists and experts with different experiences and backgrounds to discuss a wide range of topics with ample opportunities for questions and conversations.

We invite a small group of journalists to participate in off-the-record webinars and in-person meetings:

  • Our program starts in late spring and ends mid-summer.

  • The program includes in-person meetings in Washington, D.C. where fellows can meet in person for seminars, visits and networking events.

  • The fellowship includes a series of webinars with accomplished foreign correspondents, analysts and Poynter faculty.

  • Fellows spend time with veteran journalists throughout the program who bring years of experiences of covering the Middle East with them.

  • The fellowship is open to reporters, editors, producers and stringers from a variety of media who are covering the Middle East or are interested in doing so.

  • Applicants must be U.S. citizens but can work for international media outlets.

  • The deadline to apply for the 2025 program will be posted in late 2024.

We offer:

  • A generous stipend.

  • All travel and logistics to and in Washington, D.C., including flights and train tickets for travel to the city, hotel, all meals and transportation inside the city.

  • Opportunities to meet journalists and Middle East experts while in Washington, D.C.

  • A foundation to build a network supporting your work in the future.

Fellows are expected to attend all webinars and in-person meetings and participate in discussions during the seminars. Stipends will be distributed throughout the program.

While in Washington, D.C., we will adhere to a strict COVID-19 protocol and to the guidelines issued during the times of these in-person meetings.

MIMEF Staff

Support for MIMEF

The Poynter Institute for Media Studies

The Poynter Institute for Media Studies is a global leader in journalism education and a strategy center that stands for uncompromising excellence in journalism, media and 21st-century public discourse. Poynter faculty teach seminars and workshops at the institute in St. Petersburg, Florida, and at newsrooms, conferences and organizations around the world. Its e-learning division offers the world’s largest online journalism curriculum, with hundreds of interactive courses and tens of thousands of registered international users. In addition, its website produces 24-hour coverage about media, ethics, technology and the business of news. Poynter is the home of the Craig Newmark Center for Ethics and Leadership, the Pulitzer Prize-winning PolitiFact, the International Fact-Checking Network and MediaWise, a digital information literacy project for young people, first-time voters and senior citizens. The world’s top journalists and media innovators rely on Poynter to learn and teach new generations of reporters, storytellers, media inventors, designers, visual journalists, documentarians and broadcasters. This work builds public awareness about journalism, media, the First Amendment and discourse that serves democracy and the public good.

Becker Charitable Trust

The Newton and Rochelle Becker Charitable Trust supports organizations that work to foster and protect the values that underlie democratic institutions and societies, such as freedom of speech, religion, and the press, free and fair elections, human rights, and an informed, educated citizenry. The Becker Charitable Trust supports research and educational efforts that bring accuracy, context, and understanding to the global conversation about Israel and the Middle East, with the goal of promoting peace and security in the region.

Forman Donor-Advised Funds

Forman Donor-Advised Funds is funded by digital transformation leader Craig Forman, partner at NextNews Venture in San Francisco and former president and CEO of McClatchy. His experience in technology, media and telecom includes product development, technology, sales, marketing and operation leadership at the highest levels of some of Silicon Valley’s leading platform companies. His career as a business leader and board member includes positions at Canada’s Yellow Media, advertisement leader Digital Turbine, Appia Inc., WHERE, EarthLink, Yahoo!, Time Warner’s CNN Group, and Time Inc. divisions. Forman began his career as a foreign correspondent and international bureau chief at the Wall Street Journal, where his team was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize for its coverage of the first Gulf War. He is a nonresident fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy, and a board member of the Council for Responsible Social Media.

Goodman Family Foundation

We are thankful for additional funding from the Goodman Family Foundation and appreciate their support.

The Moment Institute

Moment Institute, the journalism outreach arm of Moment Magazine, brings together journalists, public intellectuals and scholars to study and strengthen the quality of journalism and to deepen understanding of contemporary issues. The award-winning magazine was founded in 1975 by Nobel Peace Laureate Elie Wiesel and writer Leonard Fein and has been led by journalist Nadine Epstein since 2004. In addition to MIMEF, Moment Institute projects include: the The Daniel Pearl Investigative Journalism Initiative (DPIJI) which supports journalists in their in-depth reporting on deeply ingrained prejudices around the world; The Antisemitism Project which tracks carefully fact-checked global antisemitic incidents, and produces thoughtful articles, interviews, and resources for combating and understanding antisemitism; and The Jewish Political Voices Project (JPVP) which follows selected voters in swing states through the election season to explore the political and cultural forces splitting apart both the nation and American Jews.